Training Arctic Beauty (A. kolomikta) kiwi?

First time poster here on permies. I can't seem to find any information on training Actinidia kolomikta kiwi. They are less vigorous than Hardy kiwi (A. Arguta) so I'm curious if the same methods apply and if I could follow Ken Muir's guide.  just planted a few Arctic beauty on a north-east wall that gets full sun until about noon and is heavily shaded thereafter. I've read kolomikta do better in shaded conditions. I would like to espalier them, but cannot decide if I should 1) prune the main stem at the lowest wire, select the three strongest shoots to form the 2 cordons/vertical stem and repeat this for additional horizontal wires OR 2) focus on main stem vertical growth, top it when it reaches the top of the yellow, and then select convenient offshoots as cordons. Has anyone tried espaliering with kolomikta specifically? Do you have a system that's working well for you? Or alternatively, is it possible that arctic kiwi simply don't produce enough vigorous growth requiring intense pruning? I I'm located in zone 7a in the Washington DC area if that's help. Any advice is appreciated!

I gave it 2 days hoping one of those with more experience with kiwi would respond.   My experience is more with grapes but the vining habit is about the same.  they always look for an opportunity to go up.  They seem to be able to sense when there is something above to reach for. My preference is to grow a central leader then cut it back to force lower buds to form laterals.  Do not let them have free will. I know of a summer cabin where the arbor over the back porch was to be covered but now the whole cabin is covered.

I've got one left out of five planted, and it is the one that gets the most water and afternoon shade. And it's a male :(

Thanks Hans and Abe! Appreciate the responses.

Abe, funnily enough my male is in the shadiest spot of the 5 I planted, though all of them do get decent shade. I'm curious, did you try training your kiwis before they died or did they die when really young? Hearing your story gets to the root of it: are Arctic kiwi just not vigorous enough to prune hard?

Abe Coley wrote:I've got one left out of five planted, and it is the one that gets the most water and afternoon shade. And it's a male

I don't have the arctic kiwi, but I have a few hardy kiwis, and they seem to thrive on lots of water and some shade also. Ones that were in a dry sunny spot all died.

And my male kiwi vines always seem tougher too unfortunately.  I'm guessing that the female plants have been more selected for high quality fruit, while vigor and disease resistance took a back seat unfortunately.